Dual Lists: Murtaugh and Experiance and a power level OVER 9000!!!!

[kshaw]

So. Many Thanks to the well wishers sorry about the tardiness of this post but with my birthday falling on Pesach things were hectic.

I've made it through three decades. I've seen many things in my Thirty years of life, most recently Fidel Castro's resignation.
Haitians finally got asylum here in the States (due to an earthquake that devistated the island and possibly unsettled the earth's crust to cause a chain of earthquakes that have steadily grown in intensity).
I saw the election of the first black president (well, half at least). China became a world economic powerhouse.
The American economy suffered a recession that teetered on the brink of a Second Great Depression.
We went to war in Iraq... twice.
The World Trade Center was bombed... twice.
A European Union was created, where most of Europe was united under one currency, one body of representatives.
Two youths went on a shooting spree in their high schools, killing several of their own peers before turning their guns on themselves.
There was an Oklahoma City bombing of a Federal building after federal agents militarily moved on a cult.
There were several genocides, one in Africa, the other in Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile after over a century Britain gave Hong Kong back to China while Portugal gave back Macao.
Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison, Apartheid ended and Mandela was elected as the first black South African President.
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland finally signed peace agreements.

Al Gore invented the Internet.

The Berlin Wall fell, as did the USSR and the Soviet Block, effectively ending the Cold War.
The triumph of Voodoo economics (as per some conservatives)?

Thirty years and I havent even gone into entertainment. Yet that's been the backdrop, the setting of my thirty years. Shall I discuss my nearly drowning three days before my third birthday? The epic summer of '88, or my first crush? Reading the Picture Bible and my introduction into the word of HaShem? The years of social alienation as I went through middle and high school, or the social triumph of The Shaw in college? What about the fall from Andrews and Louisville, KY? My loss of virginity? Becoming Messianic? The Connie & Rut years? The call to ministry and revocation (or pause)?

All of this is plot. The Navy? A Tale for the next decade. No. Two Lists remain. First my ten things I've learned in the past two years (no request was made last year).
"I'm gettin to old for this shit"

1. Regardless of how poisonous it can be to you, the heart wants what the heart wants (ooh! let me touch the hot stove of a woman and get burned!)
2. Sometimes we must learn to forgive someone for doing what's best for us, as well as when they hurt us: i.e. a husband refraining from buying his wife jewelry to keep the lights on, a parent spanking a child, or a Heavenly Father closing the door on the calling He'd originally given you.
3. There are trials, tribulations, and closed doors. Trials are the forge developing our character, tribulations the attacks of others, and closed doors the final will of HaShem on a situation. Discernment of each is done by hindsight. Each requires the Lord to help you through.
4. A potential wife must have the strength to stand by her man and defend him come hell or high water, if need be even against her own family.
5. When you find yourself living in a sukkah, figure out where your real home is supposed to be, then get there before you get rained on.
6. Change can be slow, glacial, if not as bad as continental drift. Yet we have to trust that the future will vindicate progress.
7. Realize what is *your* business to talk about and what isn't. Just because it is connected to you or involves you does not give you license to chat about it to everyone (or post it in your blog).
8. A bad end to a relationship, whether it be with an individual or group of people can sour every memory of the interaction, good or bad.
9.  You must have small plans that eventually converge into a larger plan, (like a flow chart). Else you're playing checkers with your life with your Enemy's playing chess.
10. Finally the biggest thing I've learned this Year? As it pertains to all the funk I've dealt with for the past thirty years (the social ineptitude, feelings of inadequacy, constant need to redifine myself or prove that I deserve to be loved). Well, in the words of LAPD Detective Sergeant Roger Murtaugh of Lethal Weapon:"I'm gettin to old for this shit."
    

So. That being done. The other list I've been working on that many have heard me speak of the past year. Some of it I just mentioned in my Experiance Point Request. The Murtaugh list:

1. Midnight Movie Showings
2. Being that old guy with the skateboard
3. Stuffed Animals
4. Playing house when not in the company of a minor UNDER 10
5. Vampires
6. Redefining everything I know about myself and my self-definition.
7. Any Sort of Boot Camp
8. Being Lovelorn (I'm not a Creep, or a weirdo, I belong here, if deh gyal fool enuf fi run mi' nah need ar. She nuh special, is she wish she didda special)
9. (sorry Viacom) Mtv or Nickelodeon
10. Choosing games over getting ready for work (this includes study of material)

After three decades of these ten things I've learned:: "I'm gettin to old for this shit."
I know it took a while but I finally finished. Hell it took me a while to get to this point. I'm happy I made it. I look forward to the next three and a half years and living a life that demands the Lord Either call me to sleep or the World consider me too much a danger to allow to live. Next year you'll have another XP request, 2021 for the next Murtaugh list. As always folks. I'm k5h4w and you've just been Kreemed. Notice that wasn't on the list.